Game Systems and Timing Overview
When compared to other 3D Sonic games, there's much about Sonic and the Black Knight that doesn't make sense. I'll try to explain the weird stuff for you. Let's get the timing out of the way first. Timing Any % For Any %, the timer on the File Select Screen is used to time the game. It times everything that is in-game. What that means is in-game cutscenes, actual gameplay, and the results screen are counted towards the time. You can't skip in-game cutscenes the first time you see them so don't worry about those. On the other hand, when you complete a mission make sure you mash A like a nut. When times will be mentioned on this wiki for Any %, I will be talking about the time you can see by staring at the clock in the upper right right before completing a mission. For the majority of the first half of the game, it will be the only rough estimate you have as to how well you are doing unless you feel like checking the File Select Screen after every mission for some reason. Segmented I don't see why anyone would play the game this way since it can be completed in about 40 to 50 minutes, but once again the File Select Screen timer is used for this. The only way the game saves is if you exit a level by pressing A on the results screen. If you leave using the pause menu, the game won't save. The problem is, it will remember the amount of time you spent in a level. If you play another level and complete it normally using A on the results screen to exit it, it will save and add the time it remembered to the File Select Screen timer which will obviously mess up your time. Remember to reset if you don't want that to happen. Individual Levels Unlike every other 3D game in the franchise, Sonic and the Black Knight does not save your best time. It saves your best score and the time achieved while getting that score instead. That's why ILs are only done on certain mission. Only three mission types (Legacy/Beat the Clock/Rush Hour) display the time obtained upon completing the level. It obviously won't save those times either so you must take a screenshot of the results screen or record the run if you want proof. Progression System Just like Sonic and the Secret Rings, the game has a progression system. In Secret Rings, it was very straight forward and automated. In Black Knight, it's a little more confusing and also increased the amount of grinding required. For Any %, all that matters is that you stay on Knight Style and have 500 Followers by the time you reach Dragon's Lair. For ILs as you can guess, you need to max everything out. Proficiency Level On the result screen you will see some stars. This is sort of like your letter rankings from a traditional Sonic game and are based on your score. The max you can receive is five. They aren't just for rankings though. The amount of stars you earned will increase a counter that appears at the bottom of the results screen. This is called your Proficiency Level. Let's get something out of the way first. There are three sword style that you can set by visiting the Blacksmith. * Knight Style is your balanced style. Its main use is for a very souped-up Ring Reward. * Cavalier Style is your speed style. Its main use is for the Crest of Wind. * Paladin Style is your combat style. Its main use is for the attack buffs and the Crest of Fire. You have to switch between the sword styles as Sonic. Shadow is attached to the Knight Style. Blaze is attached to the Cavalier Style. Knuckles is attached to the Paladin Style. Each style has its own Proficiency Level that you have to grind out. There are ten Proficiency Levels per style. Upgrading the Proficiency Levels will unlock skills similar to how leveling up in Secret Rings unlocked skills. They will be automatically equipped and the skills are different depending on the style. Knight Style gets a strong Ring Reward/Ring Bonus along with moderate buffs to movement and attacks and the Crest of Kings. Cavalier Style gets strong speed and movement buffs along with small attack and Ring Reward/Ring Bonus buffs and the Crest of Wind. Paladin Style gets strong attack buffs along with small movement and moderate Ring Reward/Ring Bonus buffs with the Crest of Fire. The fastest way to max out the Proficiency Levels is to replay the 1st Deep Woods boss over and over again since it can be defeated in five seconds or lower. You can keep retrying using the + button on the results screen and the game will remember the amount of stars you have, but you must exit normally by pressing A on the results screen for the game to save and for you to receive your upgrades. Followers The other tier to the progression system are the Followers. The results screen will show you how many you have obtained. Most of the time you will at least get one follower for every 1000 points. The number will be lower or higher then that depending on hidden bonuses or detriments. For example, trading with the townspeople counts a bonus. Hitting one counts as a detriment. Each mission has its own amount of Followers to get. The quickest way to do so is to focus on score. Use Sonic in Knight Style or Shadow depending on the mission. Equip items that will help with your score, and get to work. Max is 25000. Your Proficiency Level denotes the skills and upgrades that are available to you at the time. Some of them will be hidden. You won't get them all based on your Proficiency Level alone. The amount of Followers will unlock the rest. Proficiency Level usually unlocks and improves movement upgrades and behind-the-scenes things like Ring Reward/Ring Bonus and Soul Surge upgrades for Sonic. Your Followers increases the Soul Gauge, raises the soul gauge's efficiency depending on the style (Cavalier is most efficient, Paladin is least efficient), unlocks the crests, and unlocks the special moves for Sonic like Attack Step, Lunge Attack, and Aerial Attack. For Shadow, Knuckles, and Blaze, none of this matters. What they can do is tied to their swords. Craft their last swords asap. Of course you can get around this stuff completely by downloading a save file if you have a hacked Wii/WiiU or is emulating the game, but for those that don't, prepare to grind. Menu Navigation Yeah, this seems dumb, I know, but there are some little things that I should mention. + will get you past the cutscenes. B then A will get you out of item claiming. World Map There are three ways to get around the world map. You can use the control stick, the d-pad, or the IR pointer. The control stick and the d-pad aren't precise at all. You'll press down and notice that the selection will jump to the left or right. You'll press left or right and notice the selection jumping up or down. I strongly recommend using the IR pointer if it is available. It will save you some headache. Sonic and the Secret Rings didn't tell you what missions were required to advance the story. Sonic and the Black Knight does. Those missions on the world map are identified with an X. Once you select a mission, another screen will pop up asking you if you are ready. If your brain is turned off and you are going through the motions, you might press left or right on the control stick or d-pad to change characters then mash A to start the mission. Please don't do this. There's a small delay on this screen before you can choose characters so wait a little. Also the control stick is very sensitive and can give you double inputs on this screen. Use the d-pad. Dolphin For those that don't know by now, Dolphin is a GC/Wii emulator for PCs and Mobile. Sonic and the Black Knight runs perfectly in Dolphin and is completely identical to the real thing if a Real Wii Remote is used which is a blessing I guess. However, there are some quirks. There is a 60fps hack running around. Do not use it for runs of any type. The soul gauge takes longer to deplete. It's small, but noticeable and hurts more than it helps for runs. If using an older version of Dolphin, the game will have near instant load times. More recent versions of Dolphin have console accurate load times. This won't mess with the File Select Screen's timer, but it's still something to keep in mind. The game's controls are already bad. You don't want to add input lag by using vsync. Make sure it is disabled. While using DirectX 11 or 12, you shouldn't need it so use one of those backends. Dolphin builds a shader cache your first time through the game which will cause lag. Newer revisions have some type of ubershaders thing built in. I haven't tried it yet. For revisions without that, you might want to play through each level and each boss in the game casually first to build the shader cache once. I also notice that Per Pixel Lighting used to give me lag spikes too before I upgraded my graphics card. You might want to disable that as well.